Rethinking Media and Democracy--James Curran
Free market watchdog
p.121:
1.Regulation makes gov. becoming a super-gatekeeper.
2.subsidy let government strick down press right.
p.122-123:time-worn arguments
1.the watchdog role should be paramount. (ideal)(p.122)
2.sometimes, media are even big business.(truth)(p.123)
p.123-124:Market corruption
1.government and media are being a relationship of cooperation.(p.123)
2.Australia example(p.123)
3.the market can give rise NOT to independent watchdogs serving the public interest BUT to coporate mercenaries that adjust their critical scrutiny to suit their private purpose.(p.124)
p.124-125:Market suppression
1.Taiwan example: private media in Taiwan not only accepted authoritarian rule but also helped to rationalize it.(p.124)
2.these media collaborations with authoritarian states arose because media owners were part of the national system of power.(p.124)
3.tip offs to the media were part of a conscious agenda-building strategy by policy elites.(p.124)
4.most press's independent investigation receive pre-culled information from state officials.(p.125)
5.conclusion(p.125): the extremely simplistic theroy fails to take into account the wider relations of power in which the media are situated.(p.125)
p.125:State control
1.Public broadcasters have been censored by restrictive laws and regulations. ex. squeezed by refusals to increase public funding.(p.125)
2.what does pubic media need? a constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression.......(see p.126 second paragraph)
3.two examples: 01>journalistic resistance to corporate control:p.126; 02>journalistic resistance to state control:p.126
4.a little difference of treatment between public and private media from audience's response: (see.127)
Information and debate
p.128:
1.Free Market's espousal of neo-liberalism undermines what it sets out to achieve in four different ways.
1-1.the free market now restricts the effective freedom to public.(high cost of market entry)
1-2.the free market reduces the circulation of public information and renders people less well infromed.
1-3.the free market restricts participation in public debate.(information-rich media for elites)
1-4.the market undermines intelligent and rational debate.(information as a commodity)
Voice of the people
p.129:
1.Representing people to authority is the third key democratic function of the media.(fourth estate)
P.129:Market failures
1.The influence of the consumer is reactiverather than proactive.
2.The extent of real market choice is consequently central to how much power the consumer really has.(p.130)
3.before 1980,the power of consumer is limited.(oligopolistic)(p.130)
4.1980s~1990s, seems consumers have more power of using media because of new technologies.(p.130)
p.130:
1.there is a say:being monopoly is the reason for agnisting global market. Time warner, Fox...(p130)
2.example:companies merged everywhere in the world.(p130-131)
p.131-132:
1.If one defensive response to market fragmentation was crporate concentration, another was attempted global conquest.
2.to think global but act local.
3.The first key factor limiting consumer influences is an enormous increase in the concentration of media ownship.(p.131)
4.The second factor is high market entry costs.(p.131)
5.The result is market system that is not genuinely open to all, and which tends to be controlled by right-wing leadership.(p131)
6.the third factor is minorities and the ones with least money.(p.132)
7.market democracy is a universe where individuals do not have equal votes.(p.132)
p.132:
1.More media outlets doesn't mean 'more of the same', as some left-wing critics maintain.
2.But what it does mean is that choice is always pre-structured by the conditions of competition.(132)
3.American TV has a lot of chanels(sports, news, soap...). There has been a spectacular increase in the genre variety, but there has not been a corresponding increase in its ideological range.(p132)
p.133:
1.the present situation of media in UK seems variety, but actuall they are dominated by five groups.
Comparative perspective
p.133:what do private media represent?
1.Economic elite:Private media are primarily conduits of economic elite influence on both government and public opinion.(Russia)(p.133)
2.Political elite:The political elite uses state power to develop a clientelist system of patronage and influence.(state loans,subsidies, government advertising...)(Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia)(p.133)
3.Economic and Political elite: The media represent the elite concensus, and seek to win popular acceptance.(Latin Amreican)(p.133-4)
4.Liberal corporatism, relationship between organized capital, labour, and the state: A system of power-sharing. (Sweden, Britain)(p.134)
5.the degree to which the leading power network coheres: It gives the appearence of liberal theory "working" and represents the "public opinion."(depends on power structure)(p.134)
Habermas and the public sphere
p.135:
1.Public sphere consisted of privileged private citizens who debated public affairs in a free, rational and disinterested way through personal interaction and debate in the press, and reached a concensus that influenced government.
2.But this public sphere is limited by being socially restricted(re-deudalization).
3.Due to see public sphere as a mass version of a university seminar conducted, Habermas shifted his position.
4.Habermas:At its centre is government, the civil service...outside this core system is an inner periphery of institution with power delegated by the state. The out periphery is made up of two sorts of organization that can be broadly categorized as "customers (business association, labour unions..)" and "suppliers(voluntary association, churches, new social movements)."
5.:Habermas:social concerns should be transmitted from the periphery of society to the centre.
p.135-136:Habermas's revision
1.no longer conceived of as private individuals coming together as a single public but as a network for communicating information and points of view.(p.135)
2.publib sphere is being much more differentiated, pluralistic and organized than before.(p.136)
3.to be public interest groups and also radical professionals who identify, draw attention to and interpret social problem, and propose solutions.(p.136)
4.sensors of society who detect neglected issues.
5.interventions can also lead to critical debate coalescing into topically specified public opinions, and sustained pressure for a considered respone from the political system.(p.136)
6.when the public sphere being mobilized, the balance of power between society and the political system then shifs.
p.136
1.It plays down class conflict.(organized labour are an agency of popular representation.)
2.Whereas, before, the public sphere was viewed as being coextensive with the nation state, it is now presented as a highly complex network.
p.136:
1.Habermas's undevelpoed reference to the "emerging golbal public sphere" as a key development that may be a harbinger of a "new universalist world order" is still vague.
2.the global public sphere is best understood NOT as a single global space of democratic exchange, BUT as a series of inter-locking public sphere.
3.a global communication order is developing in a lopsided way which is connected to wider inequalities of power and resources.
4.This(point 3) is contested by those who argue that the internet is creating a global public sphere.
5.In 1997, 92 per cent of internet host were derived from OECD countries, reflecting the superior wealth and communication infrastructure of the developed world.
Idealist legacy
p.137:
1.The traditional justification for media pluralism seems implausible.
p.138:
1.If tehre is a significant level of competition, there is no lack of pluralism.
2.This(point 1 ) ignores where opinion comes from, and brackets out the question of social access.
p.138:
1.contestation takes place between rival social groups at the level of ideology.
2.pluralism cannot just equated with competition. It means: namely,media diversity supported by an open process of contest in which different social groups have the opportunity to express divergent views and values.
p.139:
1.It also means accepting a greater degree of conflict played out in the media.
2.media debate culminates in agreement.(but, actually, existence of conflicts of interest cannot be dissolved magically through discussion. Material interests can be cloaked in altruism.)
p.139:
1.The conventional liberal approach is to exclude from consideration entertainment on the grounds that it is not part of national exchange and does not belong to the political arena.
2.the exclusion of entertainment as being outside the political domain also looks increasingly unsatisfactory on serval counts.
2-1.media fiction offers cognitive maps of reality, and furnishes social understandings that have political implications. (crime movie, finally bears a attitude toward law and order)
2-2.media entertainment is bound up with debates about social values and identities, which are two key determines of voting behaviour.
2-3.media entertainment is a vehicle of debate about certain "political" issues.(ex. soap opera is important to discuss gender and race relation)
2-4.entertainment is an important way to register people's opposition to dominant structures and ideologies.(ex. popular music--Rap music)
3.But, entertainment is still not a ideal way of debating the relative merits of alternative policy options.(p.140)
An alternative approach
p.140:
1.rethinking libral theory is to break free from assumption that the media are a single institution with a common democratic purpose.different media shoud be viewed as having different functions.
2.Baker:democratic purpose of media system is to assist social groups to constitute themselves and clarify their objectives.
p.141:what general media should do
1.by offering an open public dialogue, this sector, general media, should also help people to identify adequately their self-interest, and weigh this in the balance in relation to competing definitions of common good.
2.And should facilitate democratic procedures for defining agreed aims and regulating conflict.
3.need to keep open agenda-setting channels between civil society and the governmental system.
4.being responsive to public interest group initiatives.
5.maintaining pressure for adequate responses to public interest group.
p.143:
1.strategies for preventing government control:
1-1.independent funding through a licence fee.
1-2.a block on unmediated government appointments to broadcasting authorities.
1-3.the dispersal of power within broadcasting organization.
1-4.a climate of freedom, supported by a written constitution.
p.143:public service approaches:
1.social franchising approach model:delivers representation trough group rivalry.
2.liberal corporatism model:delivers representation trough group power sharing.
3.civil service model:seeks to establish television as a neutral, autonomous zone that stands above partisan politics and social interest.(p.144)
Civic media sector
p.144:
1.The civic media sector supports organiztions that are the life force of democracy.
2.three main segments: 01>the media which provide a link between civic organiztions and the wider public. 02> the subcultural media which relate to a social constituency rather than an organized group. 03> the intra-organizational media whose purpose is to reinforce the loyalty of its menbers.(p.144-5)
p.145:
1.two way to reinvigorate civic media sector: 01>to adapt the social franchising approach to supporting organized minority voices. 02>to subsidize the existing media of major organized group.
Professional media sector
p.145:
1.The professional media sector should be composed of media that are under the control of professional communicators, or orgazied in a form rhat gives staff maximum creative freedom.
2.It should be publicly funded, but free of public service requirements.
3.function: 01>would strengthen the media system's oversight of power centres in society. 02>would wnhance the diversity of the media system. 03>promote a distinctive style of public affairs coverage. 04>should preside over a revival of television drama.
Private enterprise sector
p.146:function
1.it will make the media system as a whole more responsive to popular pleasures.
2.enhance its diversity.
3.contribute potentially to critical oversight of political power.
Social market sector
1.The Social market sector takes the form of minority media, operating within the market, which are supported by the state.
2.In Europe, two main forms: 01>is a drip-feed of selective subsidy targeted towards minority media(help limited scale media). 02>proovide aid to facilitate market entry.
p.148:
1.The social market approach is associated with legislative curbs on media concentration.
Free market watchdog
p.121:
1.Regulation makes gov. becoming a super-gatekeeper.
2.subsidy let government strick down press right.
p.122-123:time-worn arguments
1.the watchdog role should be paramount. (ideal)(p.122)
2.sometimes, media are even big business.(truth)(p.123)
p.123-124:Market corruption
1.government and media are being a relationship of cooperation.(p.123)
2.Australia example(p.123)
3.the market can give rise NOT to independent watchdogs serving the public interest BUT to coporate mercenaries that adjust their critical scrutiny to suit their private purpose.(p.124)
p.124-125:Market suppression
1.Taiwan example: private media in Taiwan not only accepted authoritarian rule but also helped to rationalize it.(p.124)
2.these media collaborations with authoritarian states arose because media owners were part of the national system of power.(p.124)
3.tip offs to the media were part of a conscious agenda-building strategy by policy elites.(p.124)
4.most press's independent investigation receive pre-culled information from state officials.(p.125)
5.conclusion(p.125): the extremely simplistic theroy fails to take into account the wider relations of power in which the media are situated.(p.125)
p.125:State control
1.Public broadcasters have been censored by restrictive laws and regulations. ex. squeezed by refusals to increase public funding.(p.125)
2.what does pubic media need? a constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression.......(see p.126 second paragraph)
3.two examples: 01>journalistic resistance to corporate control:p.126; 02>journalistic resistance to state control:p.126
4.a little difference of treatment between public and private media from audience's response: (see.127)
Information and debate
p.128:
1.Free Market's espousal of neo-liberalism undermines what it sets out to achieve in four different ways.
1-1.the free market now restricts the effective freedom to public.(high cost of market entry)
1-2.the free market reduces the circulation of public information and renders people less well infromed.
1-3.the free market restricts participation in public debate.(information-rich media for elites)
1-4.the market undermines intelligent and rational debate.(information as a commodity)
Voice of the people
p.129:
1.Representing people to authority is the third key democratic function of the media.(fourth estate)
P.129:Market failures
1.The influence of the consumer is reactiverather than proactive.
2.The extent of real market choice is consequently central to how much power the consumer really has.(p.130)
3.before 1980,the power of consumer is limited.(oligopolistic)(p.130)
4.1980s~1990s, seems consumers have more power of using media because of new technologies.(p.130)
p.130:
1.there is a say:being monopoly is the reason for agnisting global market. Time warner, Fox...(p130)
2.example:companies merged everywhere in the world.(p130-131)
p.131-132:
1.If one defensive response to market fragmentation was crporate concentration, another was attempted global conquest.
2.to think global but act local.
3.The first key factor limiting consumer influences is an enormous increase in the concentration of media ownship.(p.131)
4.The second factor is high market entry costs.(p.131)
5.The result is market system that is not genuinely open to all, and which tends to be controlled by right-wing leadership.(p131)
6.the third factor is minorities and the ones with least money.(p.132)
7.market democracy is a universe where individuals do not have equal votes.(p.132)
p.132:
1.More media outlets doesn't mean 'more of the same', as some left-wing critics maintain.
2.But what it does mean is that choice is always pre-structured by the conditions of competition.(132)
3.American TV has a lot of chanels(sports, news, soap...). There has been a spectacular increase in the genre variety, but there has not been a corresponding increase in its ideological range.(p132)
p.133:
1.the present situation of media in UK seems variety, but actuall they are dominated by five groups.
Comparative perspective
p.133:what do private media represent?
1.Economic elite:Private media are primarily conduits of economic elite influence on both government and public opinion.(Russia)(p.133)
2.Political elite:The political elite uses state power to develop a clientelist system of patronage and influence.(state loans,subsidies, government advertising...)(Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia)(p.133)
3.Economic and Political elite: The media represent the elite concensus, and seek to win popular acceptance.(Latin Amreican)(p.133-4)
4.Liberal corporatism, relationship between organized capital, labour, and the state: A system of power-sharing. (Sweden, Britain)(p.134)
5.the degree to which the leading power network coheres: It gives the appearence of liberal theory "working" and represents the "public opinion."(depends on power structure)(p.134)
Habermas and the public sphere
p.135:
1.Public sphere consisted of privileged private citizens who debated public affairs in a free, rational and disinterested way through personal interaction and debate in the press, and reached a concensus that influenced government.
2.But this public sphere is limited by being socially restricted(re-deudalization).
3.Due to see public sphere as a mass version of a university seminar conducted, Habermas shifted his position.
4.Habermas:At its centre is government, the civil service...outside this core system is an inner periphery of institution with power delegated by the state. The out periphery is made up of two sorts of organization that can be broadly categorized as "customers (business association, labour unions..)" and "suppliers(voluntary association, churches, new social movements)."
5.:Habermas:social concerns should be transmitted from the periphery of society to the centre.
p.135-136:Habermas's revision
1.no longer conceived of as private individuals coming together as a single public but as a network for communicating information and points of view.(p.135)
2.publib sphere is being much more differentiated, pluralistic and organized than before.(p.136)
3.to be public interest groups and also radical professionals who identify, draw attention to and interpret social problem, and propose solutions.(p.136)
4.sensors of society who detect neglected issues.
5.interventions can also lead to critical debate coalescing into topically specified public opinions, and sustained pressure for a considered respone from the political system.(p.136)
6.when the public sphere being mobilized, the balance of power between society and the political system then shifs.
p.136
1.It plays down class conflict.(organized labour are an agency of popular representation.)
2.Whereas, before, the public sphere was viewed as being coextensive with the nation state, it is now presented as a highly complex network.
p.136:
1.Habermas's undevelpoed reference to the "emerging golbal public sphere" as a key development that may be a harbinger of a "new universalist world order" is still vague.
2.the global public sphere is best understood NOT as a single global space of democratic exchange, BUT as a series of inter-locking public sphere.
3.a global communication order is developing in a lopsided way which is connected to wider inequalities of power and resources.
4.This(point 3) is contested by those who argue that the internet is creating a global public sphere.
5.In 1997, 92 per cent of internet host were derived from OECD countries, reflecting the superior wealth and communication infrastructure of the developed world.
Idealist legacy
p.137:
1.The traditional justification for media pluralism seems implausible.
p.138:
1.If tehre is a significant level of competition, there is no lack of pluralism.
2.This(point 1 ) ignores where opinion comes from, and brackets out the question of social access.
p.138:
1.contestation takes place between rival social groups at the level of ideology.
2.pluralism cannot just equated with competition. It means: namely,media diversity supported by an open process of contest in which different social groups have the opportunity to express divergent views and values.
p.139:
1.It also means accepting a greater degree of conflict played out in the media.
2.media debate culminates in agreement.(but, actually, existence of conflicts of interest cannot be dissolved magically through discussion. Material interests can be cloaked in altruism.)
p.139:
1.The conventional liberal approach is to exclude from consideration entertainment on the grounds that it is not part of national exchange and does not belong to the political arena.
2.the exclusion of entertainment as being outside the political domain also looks increasingly unsatisfactory on serval counts.
2-1.media fiction offers cognitive maps of reality, and furnishes social understandings that have political implications. (crime movie, finally bears a attitude toward law and order)
2-2.media entertainment is bound up with debates about social values and identities, which are two key determines of voting behaviour.
2-3.media entertainment is a vehicle of debate about certain "political" issues.(ex. soap opera is important to discuss gender and race relation)
2-4.entertainment is an important way to register people's opposition to dominant structures and ideologies.(ex. popular music--Rap music)
3.But, entertainment is still not a ideal way of debating the relative merits of alternative policy options.(p.140)
An alternative approach
p.140:
1.rethinking libral theory is to break free from assumption that the media are a single institution with a common democratic purpose.different media shoud be viewed as having different functions.
2.Baker:democratic purpose of media system is to assist social groups to constitute themselves and clarify their objectives.
p.141:what general media should do
1.by offering an open public dialogue, this sector, general media, should also help people to identify adequately their self-interest, and weigh this in the balance in relation to competing definitions of common good.
2.And should facilitate democratic procedures for defining agreed aims and regulating conflict.
3.need to keep open agenda-setting channels between civil society and the governmental system.
4.being responsive to public interest group initiatives.
5.maintaining pressure for adequate responses to public interest group.
p.143:
1.strategies for preventing government control:
1-1.independent funding through a licence fee.
1-2.a block on unmediated government appointments to broadcasting authorities.
1-3.the dispersal of power within broadcasting organization.
1-4.a climate of freedom, supported by a written constitution.
p.143:public service approaches:
1.social franchising approach model:delivers representation trough group rivalry.
2.liberal corporatism model:delivers representation trough group power sharing.
3.civil service model:seeks to establish television as a neutral, autonomous zone that stands above partisan politics and social interest.(p.144)
Civic media sector
p.144:
1.The civic media sector supports organiztions that are the life force of democracy.
2.three main segments: 01>the media which provide a link between civic organiztions and the wider public. 02> the subcultural media which relate to a social constituency rather than an organized group. 03> the intra-organizational media whose purpose is to reinforce the loyalty of its menbers.(p.144-5)
p.145:
1.two way to reinvigorate civic media sector: 01>to adapt the social franchising approach to supporting organized minority voices. 02>to subsidize the existing media of major organized group.
Professional media sector
p.145:
1.The professional media sector should be composed of media that are under the control of professional communicators, or orgazied in a form rhat gives staff maximum creative freedom.
2.It should be publicly funded, but free of public service requirements.
3.function: 01>would strengthen the media system's oversight of power centres in society. 02>would wnhance the diversity of the media system. 03>promote a distinctive style of public affairs coverage. 04>should preside over a revival of television drama.
Private enterprise sector
p.146:function
1.it will make the media system as a whole more responsive to popular pleasures.
2.enhance its diversity.
3.contribute potentially to critical oversight of political power.
Social market sector
1.The Social market sector takes the form of minority media, operating within the market, which are supported by the state.
2.In Europe, two main forms: 01>is a drip-feed of selective subsidy targeted towards minority media(help limited scale media). 02>proovide aid to facilitate market entry.
p.148:
1.The social market approach is associated with legislative curbs on media concentration.
